Women in Tech Africa’s flagship event, Women in Tech Week (WiTW) is an annual event which since its inception in 2016, has brought women in tech globally together to celebrate success and impact through leadership training, peer learning, and workshops. The focus topics are related to Technology, Entrepreneurship, Work-life balance, and Leadership. The audience for these events generally comprises of women tech entrepreneurs, girls aspiring for stem careers and C level executive women.

This year’s Women in Tech Week dubbed Digital Africa happened from the 18th – 22nd September 2018, with over 50 events in 16 countries. Each of these days with a focus and strategic selection of speakers.

Day 1, Digital Africa Day focused on various unique ways we can contribute to the Digitization of Africa; Mobile payment, Smart infrastructure, Cloud and IoT through a series of interactive sessions marking the official launch of the Tech Week.

Day 2, Tech and X Day, had as its focus, ways to fully optimize technology in all fields of work. Across the globe, with sessions around, Tech and Agric, Tech and general Health, Tech and Reproductive Health, Tech and Lifestyle, Tech and Real Estate, basically, how tech brings the X-factor to various fields of work.

Day 3, Teach a skill Day, This was a day to make an impact. Events focused on teaching people, mostly non-tech individuals something about tech. It was an opportunity for Women in Tech Africa to give back to society as various chapters embarked on skills training in secondary schools, engaging young mothers running small-scale businesses, teenage girls in communities looking forward to building STEM careers and generally people interested in tech.

Day 4, Entrepreneurial Growth and Scale Day, Women in Tech teams focused on making practical its vision of raising female entrepreneurs in tech, through the involvement of many startups in interactive sessions with our mentors, boot camps and competitions across the globe.

Day 5, Career Leadership Day, yet again sought to realize another vision of our organization, to encourage female leadership in tech roles through amazing sessions with speakers making strides in various tech fields and the celebration of these women with an awards night.

The highlight of this year’s event was Women in Tech Africa receiving the 2018 Leadership I Award at the EQUALS in Tech Awards, held recently at the Yale Club in New York City, USA.

The Equals Award is an award Founded by the Partnership of UN Women, International Telecommunication Union, GSMA and the International Trade Center amongst others. This award recognizes the innovation and creativity of global initiatives promoting the inclusion of women and girls in the tech sector and in internet access. Women in Tech Africa’s methods include encouraging women to pursue technology careers; pushing for more tech leadership positions for women; creating a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) career pipeline for women; and encouraging women to explore entrepreneurial opportunities in STEM.

This year’s 22 EQUALS in Tech Award finalists stood out particularly from among 357 nominations from 80 countries. They were chosen by an advisory group of former winners and experts from the EQUALS Steering Committee, comprising leads of the three Equals Coalitions—Access, Skills and Leadership—co-founders and financial contributors. The 2018 EQUALS in Tech Awards were supported by the Internet Society, Verizon, the Swiss Federal Office of Communications and Germany (BMZ/GIZ).